Silvester

We just got back to Berlin from Limbach for our Silvester Conference. And it was such a blast! There were about 42 students from the north/east of Germany including our one student from Berlin. It was so great to meet the students - they are so friendly, so much fun and so in love with God! I was so encouraged to see so many German students worshiping, growing in their faith and deepening their relationships with one another. Each university that was represented at the conference was given a chance to talk a little about the ministry on their campus and present a mascot symbolizing their movement. Our student held a tiny spider plant and explained how the Berlin ministry is like this plant, because it's very small, but it's alive and growing. And like spider plants, it will eventually reproduce itself so that new little buds can be planted on its own. I couldn't think of a better way to explain it. :)

We celebrated Silvester (New Year's) with games, a hilarious talent show, worship, reflection, walking through forest and fields with torches, and a dance party - awesome. I feel like our vision for Berlin was refreshed with real examples of thriving movements that are happening in other places in Germany.

In other news, today is probably the snowest day in Berlin this season, but sadly that only means about half an inch of snow on the ground. But as I went to Bauhaus this morning (equilivant to a Home Depot) I saw person after person buying sledes. And out on the streets, people were dragging their sledes along. And I don't mean those plastic disks that just barely might work on this amount of snow, but I mean those big wodden sledes that you didn't know actually existed, but only see in Christmas cards and decorations. Yes, people were buying them. There aren't even any hills in Berlin. What on earth?